Conciliation, therefore, as the phrase is, has failed in the case of the greatest part of Catholic Ireland; this remains an alien, even a perilous, element in the State; it is worse than useless to shut our eyes to the truth; the time is still apparently distant when it will become contented and loyal. Presbyterian Ireland is a people of rather more than half a million of souls, almost concentrated within a nook of Ulster; it was rebellious in sentiment a hundred years ago; it is now devotedly attached to the British connection, and has firmly supported the Union during a period of trouble. This community, nevertheless, of artisans and farmers is rather widely separated from the aristocracy in their midst, for the most part English in blood, and of the Anglican faith; and though the Presbyterian farmer has obtained the benefit of the late reforms of land tenure, and has received advantages far in excess of justice, he declares himself to be discontented with his lot, and is clamouring for a vast confiscation of the Irish land in his selfish interest. The Irish Protestants are a population rather larger than the Presbyterians; but they are scattered over all parts of the country; they do not possess the political influence of their distant kinsmen in Ulster. They comprise at least three-fourths of the leading landed gentry, and a considerable number of the better class of farmers; they predominate in the learned professions, and in the higher walks of commerce. But their lower orders feel the loss of the ascendency which was once their birthright; they have been thrust out from corporate and local government; they are isolated amidst a population not in sympathy with them; as a people they can hardly be described as prosperous. As to the Protestant landed gentry, they have for centuries been the most loyal of subjects; it is significant that they have been called the British garrison by the conspirators who seek to overthrow our rule in Ireland; they have given many eminent worthies to the State, and proved their devotion to it at the gravest crises; what they are has been shown in the war in South Africa. At present, however, profound and just discontent has sunk deep into the hearts of this order of men. They are the heirs of conquest and confiscation, it is said; but they were placed in the position they hold by English kings and Parliaments; is that any reason that, within the last half-century, the Nemesis of conquest and confiscation should have been invoked against them, in the Encumbered Estates Act and predatory agrarian laws? They were too much of an exclusive caste, separated from their dependents, and possessing powers over the occupiers of the soil, which were sometimes abused; is that any reason that they should have been deprived of political influence, supplanted by the bureaucratic Castle, changed from owners of their estates into mere pensioners, shut out by the force of law from local and county government? What, however, the Irish landed gentry most deeply feel is that, in the course of the last sixty years, they have been deceived, nay, betrayed, by British statesmen, who, having repeatedly assured them that their position was secure, have sacrificed them when it seemed to suit their purpose.